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Tampa Bay Sports Blog

Blog dedicated to Tampa Bay area major sports news and opinions.

Entries for November, 2008

Magic win with free throws. Injuries stacking up.

   The Magic pulled out a weird win at home against the Milwaukee Bucks 108-101. Dwight Howard led the bunch 24/13 even though he only played 31 minutes because of foul trouble again. This is becoming a disturbing trend and is not going to end well for the Magic if Howard can’t get his foul [...]

Lightning get thumped!

   Man that was brutal. Olaf Kolzig got beat down quickly and the Bolts didn’t stand a chance from there. The Lightning looked bad in every way giving up 5 goals before answering with 3 quick scores in the second. Vrbata, St. Louis and Malone did what they could to get the Bolts back in [...]

Jon Gruden ISN’T great!

   Let’s not get too excited about the victory the Bucs got yesterday in Detroit. They obviously fell behind quick and that was enough to bash them. But I’m not gonna harp on that. It’s time for people to stop defending Jon Gruden for his shortcomings. The Bucs got out of Detroit with a 38-20 [...]

Magic up in Indiana, down at home.

   Let’s get to the Pacers game. The Magic pulled out a great road win against an Indiana team that plays much better at home. Orlando was led by Dwight Howard who had 24/17 and swatted 5 shots. Howard blocked a possible game winner at the end of the fourth and a game tyer in [...]

The Lightning should love the NHL’s idiotic scoring system.

   The Lightning finally got Rick Tocchet his first victory on Friday, yay! It was amazing, they won by more than one goal and they even stayed out of overtime and shootouts. Mike Smith stopped 34 of 35 and the Vinny’s chipped in 3 goals. Lecavalier had two goals and Prospal had one in their [...]

The Bucs better lay it down in Detroit.

   There’s not a whole lot to say about this game. The Lions will come out fired up today. They’re looking for their first win. They beat the Bucs at home last season and will use that as motivation. There’s plenty of former Buc players and coaches on the other sideline and they want to [...]

The Magic’s season really starts in December

   The Orlando Magic have looked pretty good so far this year. A 9-3 record is good enough for first place in the Southeast. Quality wins over the Sixers, Mavericks and Bulls help build some confidence toward the long road ahead. The real season starts for the boys in blue next month though. That’s when [...]

Weekend update.

   I just got home from work and I’m putting together a post for tomorrow. I’ll clean up the Magic and Lightning games later in the weekend. I’m pulling the 7am to 11pm workday tomorrow so I probably won’t get to anything until Sunday.

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Bucs Graham and Hayes hit IR.

   In not so surprising news today the Bucs placed RB Earnest Graham and LB Geno Hayes on injured reserve and they will be gone for the rest of the season. Graham hurt his ankle in the first quarter of the Viking game and coach Jon Gruden immediately speculated that he was gone for the year. [...]

Lightning still aren’t good.

   The Bolts lost again tonight to the Panthers 4-3. If we can take anything out of this loss tonight, at home by the way, it’s the fact that the Bolts got 52 shots on goal tonight. I’m not going to make too much of it but they were way more aggressive tonight than in [...]

Crazy Magic Tuesday.

   It was a strange night in Orlando. The Magic hosted Toronto last night and were without starting twoguard Mickael Pietrus so that means Keith Bogans gets in there to take up the slack, right? Oops, there was a JJ Reddick sighting and he was shockingly in the starting lineup. Reddick hadonly logged 48 plus minutes [...]

Magrane leaves, but why Raymond?!

   The Rays lost two key pieces to their off the field team today. Joe Magrane left our broadcast booth to head to MLB network to do broadcast analysis and studio work. I’m a little sad about this as Joe has grown on me a little over the last couple seasons. He’s not really witty or [...]

Barry Melrose is gone in so many ways.

   Barry Melrose appeared on Ron MacLean’s Hockey Night in Canada and tried to explain his dismissal from the Lightning. I’ve posted to video below and I encourage you to watch it and see if you find it as entertaining as I do. Thanks to Puck Daddy by the way for the heads up on this. [...]

The Bucs looked good against Minnesota.

   I had to work Sunday so I didn’t get to look at the whole game until last night. Man did the Bucs look good this week though. The Bucs couldn’t get a good running game going after Earnest Graham went down with an ankle injury after one carry, and apparently this injury may end his [...]

Lightning still trying to get right with Tocchet.

   The Lightning came out fired up and ready to prove something under new coach Rick Tocchet. They looked better but couldn’t pull out a win on the road, losing 3-2. It’s a tough go in Carolina as it is, and under a new coachthey did about as good as expected. The defense only allowed [...]

Lacy just couldn’t hang with Taylor.

   I don’t think anyone who tuned in to watch the fight on Saturday really expected Jeff Lacy to come out of the ring a winner in Tennessee. The surprising thing to me when I watched the fight was how much bigger Jermaine Taylor was and how he used his size to back Lacy down. [...]

Magic win on road without Howard.

   The Orlando Magic have won three straight now on the road after they beat the Charlotte Bobcats 90-85 on Sunday. It was a game that could have been ugly had everyone not stepped up forDwight Howard who was the focus of the Bobcats and ended up fouling out after only playing 7 plus minutes in [...]

Big fight night!

   There are two fights I’m very interested in watching tonight. The first is the big UFC fight between Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar. I don’t know much about MMA and have never really got into it, but this fight really makes me want to watch. I really miss Brian when it comes to this [...]

Magic come up big in fourth.

   What an outstanding victory for the Magic tonight. It doesn’t matter if the Mavs have been struggling and it doesn’t matter that Josh Howard is either blind or stupid. A road win is a road win and the Magic hadn’t won a game in Dallas since 1997. Jameer Nelson, Mickael Pietrus and Rashard (yes [...]

Melrose fired as Lightning coach.

   Wow, this one snuck up on me. I’ve been patiently watching things unfold for Melrose as he took over the Lightning and finally decided today to get on here dig into the Mullet a little for the teams play and his day off. It looks like the Bolts higher ups were quite a bit [...]